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Although I did not suffer from that grave disorder, other aspects of my life concerned with that delicate element were all at odds. I continued on. How could I have overlooked him?

Because he was illegitimate. I had recognized him as mine; but he was not born in wedlock, which barred him from the succession.

I paced my chamber. I remember the sun was streaming in, making patterns on the floor which I disrupted as I passed through the hot golden shafts again and again. Did this truly prevent his becoming King, I wondered. Was there no precedent?

Margaret Beaufort had been the descendant of John of Gaunt’s bastard. There was talk that Owen Tudor had never properly married Queen Catherine. I disliked these examples, however, as they undermined my own claim to the throne. There had been William the Conqueror, of course, known as the Bastard. There was also doubt that Edward III was the son of Edward II. Most assumed he was the child of Queen Isabella’s lover, Mortimer. Richard III claimed that his brother Edward IV had been the son of a lover, sired while the good Duke of York was away fighting in France.

These were unsatisfactory examples, not apropos to my case. No, this would not do.

My son was my son! All knew him to be such. I could not confer legitimacy upon him. But I could confer titles upon him, make him noble, educate and prepare him for the throne and name him heir in my will. He was but six years old, and there was time to let the people know him and learn to love him, so that when the time came ...

I stopped stock-still. The answer had been before me all the time. Not a perfect answer, but an answer. I would make him Duke of Richmond, a semi-royal title. I would bring the boy to court. He must be hidden away in the country no longer.

Katherine would be unhappy. But she must recognize that only in this way could Mary be protected against self-seekers lusting after her throne. Our daughter deserved a better fate.

WILL:

One which she did not receive, alas. What Henry most feared has come to pass. The Spanish King Philip II saw Mary only as an opportunity to make England an appendage of Spain. He married her, pretending love; when she refused to put the entire English treasury and navy at his disposal, he left her and returned to Spain. She weeps and pines daily for him. She is the most unhappy of women.

XXXII

HENRY VIII:

There would be a formal investiture ceremony. Along with my son, I would elevate others: my cousin Henry Courtenay would become Marquis of Exeter; my nephew Henry Brandon, Charles and Mary’s nine-year-old son, would become Earl of Lincoln. I would make Henry, Lord Clifford, Earl of Cumberland; Sir Robert Radcliffe would become Viscount Fitzwalter, and Sir Thomas Boleyn, Viscount Rochford. (There are those who snicker at this last appointment, assuming it was made on Mary Boleyn’s merit. This is blatantly untrue—Sir Thomas had served me faithfully on many delicate diplomatic missions.)

WILL:

However skilled a diplomat he may have been, he cou, aststanding example. The man was quite clearly a sycophant, willing to sell his children for the highest title.

HENRY VIII:

It was held in June, 1525, at Wolsey’s magnificent palace, Hampton Court. Yes, it was finished at last, sitting on its banks of the river twenty miles upstream—a good six hours’ row—from London. Here the Thames had shrunk to a friendly, smaller stream, with only a slight rising and falling due to the tide. All around was green: green meadows, trees, flowering shrubs. The air seemed clear and purified ... like Eden itself?

HENRY VIII:

He dismounted, sliding off his beast like an ungainly sack of meal, and walked—waddled—slowly toward me.

“Your Majesty,” he said, bending as low as his girth would permit, “Hampton Court is yours.” He straightened and smiled, and I smiled back. All was proceeding according to form. I motioned to my men. But before I could do anything further, Wolsey held up his hands—great white things, like a fish’s underbelly.

“No, Your Majesty. What I said, I